Bayshore Town Center continues to add tenants

As 2010 draws to a close, Bayshore Town Center in Glendale can be thankful for a year that brought in several new high-profile tenants to the North Shore area.

Despite the economic downturn that has dramatically slowed the retail industry, 14 new stores and restaurants have opened at Bayshore since 2009, according to Chris Jaeger, Bayshore’s general manager. On top of that, the mall has experienced growth levels in traffic volume and retail sales thanks to these new destinations. He declined to release specific sales figures.

New additions such as Buffalo Wild Wings, GameStop, Orvis and Erehwon Mountain Outfitter have been well-received and exceeded expectations since their introductions, Jaeger said. The Business Journal reported in its Dec. 17 issue that Sur La Table, an upscale cookware retailer, will enter Wisconsin in spring with a store and classroom at Bayshore. The Seattle-based company will open a 5,000-square-foot store and 800-square-foot classroom on Northshore Drive across from Gap and Banana Republic, Jaeger said.

There’s more to come as well with a new Sports Authority scheduled to open in summer 2011. The 45,000-square-foot retailer will be located at the town center’s north end and will have exterior and interior mall entrances.

Bayshore Town Center has seen steady growth since a $295 million redevelopment several years ago that converted it from an enclosed mall to an open-air shopping center.

“In 2008 and 2009, Bayshore continued to build a good base of tenants coming off of the tail wind of the redevelopment,” Jaeger said. “This led us to 2010, when we saw the energy brought on by recent new tenants and which led us to bring in more retailers who were excited about the Bayshore experience as well.”

He said the mall anticipates having more than 16 million visitors in 2010, a 10 percent increase over 2009.

Jaeger said the mall is always working to add tenants to its retail mix.

“We are always in conversations with potential retailers and we continue to listen to our customers’ needs,” he said. “We strive to deliver categories and brands that are either missing within the immediate area or may be in high demand.”

Bayshore’s location on Milwaukee’s North Shore is a boon to its growth, said Dan Rosenfeld, principal of Mid-America Real Estate — Wisconsin LLC, Milwaukee, which handles leasing space for Bayshore.

“Bayshore is ideally positioned to capture the shopper from the lower east side of Milwaukee to the north side of Mequon on a frequent basis,” Rosenfeld said.

Rosenfeld said Mid-America is “gearing up for another wave of retailers locating within Bayshore that will be new to the market.”

However, available space is diminished by the impending arrival of the Sports Authority. Smaller storefront properties range from 1,100 to 3,000 square feet. In larger storefronts, there is a 6,800-square-foot site next to Williams-Sonoma in the main mall area and a 6,700 square-foot space next to Coldwater Creek, he said.

Current occupancy rates are in the low 90s percentile for retail, 85 percent for office space and 98 percent for residential properties, Jaeger said.